In a new Gamasutra developer blog Michael Theiler offered insight into the creation of ambient audio for games. Using examples from LA Noire and the upcoming viking themed RPG The Banner Saga Theiler detailed the steps necessary to create a realistic and natural ambience for areas within the games.

The first task I need to do to ensure the ambience retreats into the background is to select the correct sounds. The more particular you are about the sounds you choose, the better results you will get. Don’t settle for an slightly inappropriate sound if you know its going to be a lot of work to massage the audio to make it sound right for the space. Often I will find nice long stereo files that contain approximately the right sounds, but they always need some work to be made to fit the particular space I am attempting to create.

Usually they will need to be edited, removing anything that pops out and distracts you from the space and time of the location. I say time because often with an ambience the frequency of occurrence of particular sounds is something that needs to be considered. If there is too much happening, the space feels cluttered and busy. Even if you are depicting a busy location such as an outdoor market, or a busy mall, too frequent a bunch of sounds together and you have a mess.

This kind of cacophony can be used as an effect, but in games you don’t have control of the player’s orchestration of the world you are creating. Therefore care must be taken to design the sounds in a pleasing, but apparently random manner. These same sensibilities are used when designing a more molecular, procedural ambience - tuning time between ambient audio events is what makes these spaces feel ‘right’. It is something that I learned after doing this for a long while, less is more often than not, more. Keep most things subtle, and let the occasional sound pop out only if it sounds perfect to do so.